Hand Signals
by GraphiteGirl
Summary: It wasn't her physical appearance that convinced Archangel his dead commander was real. It was the insult. Set during the Archangel recruitment mission in ME2. Rated M for language. Bioware owns all/legal boilerplate blah blah blah.


**A/N: Just a one-shot that's been rattling around in my brain for awhile. This is my first contribution to the Mass Effect fandom. I also don't have a beta for this series, so any and all mistakes are all my fault. (I have come back and edited a few times.)**

 **Omega 2185**

Cornered and exhausted, with only the dead for company, Archangel's lifespan could be measured in minutes. Swallowing down an ocean of regret, he tapped his ID—his _real_ ID—into his omni-tool and placed a call to Palaven.

He didn't give his father specifics. He didn't have to. His father knew a good-bye when he heard it.

Still, the elder Vakarian handled the call as calmly as he did everything else life had thrown at him. Archangel kept shooting as his father sedately talked him through "target practice."

Had he been less heartsick, he would have been insulted at the amateurs sent in to soften him up. No training. Bad aim. Crappy armor. Some of shittiest weapons he'd ever laid eyes on.

So when a human in high quality armor started making her way up the far end of the boulevard, it caught his eye. _Guess they finally decided to hire someone worth a damn_ , he thought. He zoomed in his scope and caught a flash of the "N7" logo on her armor.

A week ago, he would have been deeply curious about why an elite Alliance operative was coming for him but now? Now he was too tired to puzzle it out. Honestly _,_ he didn't care why she'd been sent to kill him. If he got captured, the mercs would torture Archangel for days or even weeks.

N7s didn't play with their food. They came in, completed the mission and left. If nothing else, that N7 guaranteed him a quick, clean death. All he had to do was hold off the rabble until she got to him.

He gave his father an honest, if deliberately misleading, statement—that his odds had improved. He could hear the relief in his father's voice as they said goodbye.

Archangel rained death onto Omega's least-skilled mercs. Every time he popped out of cover to take a shot, he caught glimpses of his N7. _Brown skin. Three-man formation. Rolling her shoulder. Black hair._

It was too familiar. An old, deeply-buried sorrow bubbled up and seared itself over the new, raw grief he held for his team. He rested his head against the low wall that was his cover. For just a moment, Archangel closed his eyes and keened for all his dead.

Then he swallowed his heartache and took aim down the boulevard. The vorcha he shot off a barricade landed on the ground near a data pad.

The N7 picked up the data pad and hacked it for credits.

Archangel dropped back into cover, momentarily stunned. It couldn't be...could it?

During and after battle, Shepard had a habit of, as Ashley put it, "looting anything that isn't nailed down." He had found it so distasteful that he'd actually _lectured_ Shepard about it. Spirits, what a privileged, arrogant little bastard he'd been.

He nudged out of cover again just enough to see the boulevard through his scope. It was mostly empty, except for his N7 and her crew. Her back was to him while she argued with a human female in a catsuit. A human male—clearly a trained soldier—was trying to get them off the boulevard.

The N7 glanced up at him in his sniper's nest.

It was Shepard. Her hair was longer, messier, unkempt. The scar that once ran from eyebrow to chin was gone and she had new scars that glowed with orange cybernetics. She seemed paler than he remembered, almost sickly. But for all that, it was her.

Well...it looked like her, anyway.

He shot another merc and fell back behind cover. Something about the uniforms of the two other humans pushed his memory. He looked through his scope again.

 _Cerberus_. Now the missing scars and the cybernetics made a horrifying sense. Had those bastards made a Shepard meat-puppet for their own uses?

Suddenly furious, Archangel loaded a concussive round into his rifle and shot the N7. It dropped her shields and knocked her back a few feet.

Pissed off, she whirled around and flashed him an Alliance hand signal: fingers and thumb loosely curled over each other to make a cylinder.

"Sniper."

Because of its shape, it also doubled as an insult—"Asshole."

He barked out a hoarse laugh. All doubt about her identity vanished. The Normandy ground team had patched together their own system of hand signals, borrowing from every race on the team. Shepard had thrown that particular signal his way dozens of times, usually when he was stealing one of her kills with a head-shot.

Shepard was back. And she was here to kill him.

When the next big wave of mercs came over the barriers, he watched her drop down in the thick of it. She held back long enough to allow several of them to get in front of her! then Threw two mercenaries off the bridge. _So, not here to kill me. A rescue, Shepard?_

The mercs sure seemed to think so, as cries of, "She's with Archangel!" rang out.

Shepard threw a Singularity. He shot whatever it trapped. A merc that she Pulled away from the staircase died at the end of his rifle. For just a moment, Archangel disappeared and he was Garrus Vakarian once again, fighting in perfect sync with the best friend he'd ever had.

But then it was gone and left in its wake the cavernous void of Archangel's many sins. She was going to be disappointed in him. He was already anticipating the sermon she'd give him when she learned what he'd done on Omega. _Well, save your lectures Shepard,_ he thought _, you weren't here. You don't know._

He needent have worried. When he pulled off his helmet and revealed who he was, Shepard shouted his name with joy.

Her reaction threw him. He been ready to go on the defensive but Shepard was truly happy to see him. She gently teased him and asked questions and wasn't that just how it had always been? Shepard _asked_ her crew how they were doing, _asked_ for their opinions and their histories. How had he forgotten that?

By the time it occurred to him to ask her how _she_ was doing, they were fighting for their lives again.

Shepard's fighting style was different. She still recharged faster than any adept he'd ever seen but her biotics were stronger—a _lot_ stronger. When Eclipse mercs started to overrun the base, Shepard ran downstairs. A wave of biotic energy slammed down the bridge, knocking over a half-dozen mercs.

"That's new," he said into the comm. He couldn't see her from his vantage point but his HUD indicated she was right below him, behind the barricades.

"Shockwave," she said, sounding a little out of breath. A few of the mercs she'd knocked down struggled to stand up. "The new implant has some interesting applications."

"Such as?"

"Watch." Shepard laid down a Singularity that snagged three mercs, then threw a Warp field into it. The resulting explosion not only killed the mercs, it knocked over everybody in a 10 meter radius.

"Nice," Garrus admitted as he blew a hole through the facemask of an unfortunate Salarian. "Did your shiny new implant improve your crappy aim, too? Or do you still favor the 'point and spray' shooting style?"

"And jealousy rears it's ugly head. I told you before; if you'd wanted the kill count to be 'guns-only,' you should have said so."

"I did say so. Repeatedly, if you'll—Vanguard flanking your two, Shepard."

"Yeah, I see her. Another new trick for you, then." Shepard hit the Vanguard with Reave. The Eclipse merc gasped in pain as her barrier and life force were drained. "Lawson, Warp."

Miranda Warped the Vanguard, who flew back several meters before crumpling on the ground.

"Nice and dead," Shepard said. "No ammo required. Think of all the money I'm saving on heat sinks."

"Seems fair," Garrus drawled, "since you spend it all on your calorie-intake."

"He said to the three biotics who came to his rescue. Still a dick, Garrus."

It was surreal how instantly he and Shepard fell into their old battlefield banter. One moment, it felt like no time had passed at all. The next, he'd catch sight of a body bag and he'd feel every single second of those two years.

When the Blood Pack breached the lower level, Garrus tried to send all three of them downstairs but Shepard ordered Jacob to stay behind.

Jacob thought it was a bad idea and told her so.

"It's cute," Shepard said in a monotone, "how you think I wanted your opinion. Now shut the fuck up and help Archangel."

Shepard and Miranda left, leaving a deeply awkward silence in their wake. Jacob clearly didn't want to be there. Garrus just as obviously didn't want him there.

Jacob glanced pointedly at the body bags before asking, "So what exactly happened here? This was supposed to be a recruitment run, not a rescue."

"I have a better idea," Garrus said as he re-adjusted his scope. "Why don't you explain to me how I just spent the last 20 minutes fighting beside my dead commander."

Jacob said that Cerberus had located Shepard's body and then spent billions of credit bringing her back to life. "She wasn't supposed to even be up yet," he said, "but we had to wake her early for an emergency."

"How early?" Garrus asked, thinking about the glowing scars on Shepard's face.

"I don't really know. A few weeks, at least."

Garrus wasn't sure if he was angry on Shepard's behalf or grateful that they'd gotten her here in time. "How long has she been awake?"

"About a week."

Garrus decided he was angry on Shepard's behalf. "She's only been up for a week after two years dead and the first thing you do is send her on a mission _here_?"

"No, the first thing we did was send her on a mission to Freedom's Progress."

Then the Blood Pack arrived and kept them too busy to talk.

He wasn't sure he liked Jacob but there was no denying that the Cerberus Operative was a skilled fighter. Garrus was getting tired and sloppy and likely would have died if Jacob hadn't been there to help.

As it was, Garm nearly killed them both until Shepard arrived.

By the time the Blue Suns spilled into the lobby, Shepard was on a roll. He could see it in her eyes, the joy she always took in a good fight. Whatever Cerberus had done to bring the Commander back, he was grateful. Her return wouldn't erase his sins. It wouldn't bring his team back. It sure as hell wouldn't fix Omega. But Garrus felt better than he had in a long time.

Then Tarak showed up in that damned gunship and shot his face off. He was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

Garrus came to to find Shepard hovering over him, barking orders at Miranda and Jacob. His face and neck were on fire. His head throbbed like his brain was trying to push itself out. Everything reeked of medi-gel and everybody's words sounded like they were bouncing off rubber.

Shepard was cursing far more than usual. She always did that when she was afraid. _I'm dying_ , he realized.

He knew that having to watch him die was going to be hard on her. If he could make her laugh one last time, maybe it would ease the pain a little. He tried to reach for his rifle-he wanted Shepard to have it. _Here,_ he'd say _, the long end points **away** from you. _

He passed out before he could say anything.

Garrus woke up on the floor of a shuttle. Shepard sat behind him, cradling the upper half of his body so he wouldn't drown in his own blood. His armor, visor, omni-tool and universal translator had been removed. Somebody had placed an IV in his arm; with it, some powerful pain killers were flowing through his system.

Shepard was speaking quietly but without his UT, he couldn't understand anything beyond his name. She saw he was awake and shifted her arm so her hand was in his line of sight. She made the Alliance hand signal for "All Clear."

He nodded once to let her know he understood. She flipped him off.

Outright laughing was out of the question so he rumbled his subharmonics to let her know he was amused. Then he showed her a Turian hand signal, one they'd used back on the Normandy.

"Ally." Friend.

Shepard murmured something he didn't understand but her voice was gentler than he'd ever heard it before. He took her hand in his and let the pain killers pull him back into sleep.


End file.
